'Epitaph' by Kateřina Tučková: An Auto/Biographical and Reputation-Political Appreciation
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68081740%3A_____%2F25%3A00644423" target="_blank" >RIV/68081740:_____/25:00644423 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
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DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
'Epitaph' by Kateřina Tučková: An Auto/Biographical and Reputation-Political Appreciation
Original language description
This study explains the background of the short story Epitaph (2022) by the Czech writer Kateřina Tučková and situates it within the framework of reputation politics. The story was written as a response to Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukraine in 2022. At that time, Czech Radio invited ten well-known Czech writers to offer personal reflections on this devastating event. Epitaph was inspired by a photograph taken by Evgeniy Maloletka, which captures the futile attempt to save a then unknown pregnant woman after the Russian bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol. The study interprets Epitaph as a hybrid form of biographical fiction that combines a documentary impulse with the imagined voice of the victim, highlighting the injustice of the unequal distribution of memory between perpetrators and victims of history. The story gives a voice to a dead woman and helps to commemorate her, while remaining aware of the ethical problems inherent in fictional “speaking for another.” The analysis further situates Epitaph within the broader context of contemporary media culture and the digital economy of attention, interpreting it as a critique of a modern form of damnatio memoriae—the condemnation or erasure of memory—that affects, among others, anonymous victims of war. Through literary empathy and affective proximity, Epitaph resists forgetting and seeks to redress the injustice of historical and political reputation.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
50101 - Psychology (including human - machine relations)
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Auto/Biography and Reputation Politics
ISBN
978-10-3240-944-3
Number of pages of the result
5
Pages from-to
281-285
Number of pages of the book
298
Publisher name
Routledge
Place of publication
New York
UT code for WoS chapter
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